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The third option is the punitive expedition. Simply put, we could have hit the Afghans hard, destroyed as much of the country as possible in as short a time as possible, and warned them that if they messed with us again, we'd be back in force to finish the job. We'd have left the countryside in ruins and created a humanitarian disaster, but we'd also have let the world know that were were not to be trifled with. The example of this paradigm occurs throughout history, from the Greek's destruction of Troy, Alexander's destruction of Thebes, Rome's destruction of Carthage, Jerusalem and the various tribal strongholds of northern Europe, and various other atrocities. Of course, the survivors would hate us, but they would also fear us, and, as Machiavelli famously wrote, it is better to be feared than loved. Also, given the nature of our enemies, they'd have understood and expected this response, as it is what they would have done if the roles were reversed. The rest of the world would have screamed bloody murder, but let's face it, they were going to do that no matter what we did.

Obama has bungled it. He has traded a position of American strength in hopes that his personal popularity will rebound, and lost twice: Once when Americans were killed and again when Karzai used Obama's weakness as a stepping stone toward Karzai's own popularity.

And I believe that Obama has bungled it so badly that we should now leave. Afghans who were thought to be our allies can no longer be trusted, and every westerner in Afghanistan is in more danger now than when Obama took the helm 3 years ago.

I can't even read on this subject without needing an extra
blood pressure pill. Where were all the riots over the Taliban
blowing up the hillside Buddhas? Oh yeah, Buddists, Christians
and other Godly religions don't do this sort of thing. Only pure
evil cults do.

We won the wars both in Iraq and the shithole of Afghan,
but we lost the wars for the hearts and minds. We've done
all the good we are ever going to do there. We have given
them an infrastructure, trained their police and military and
shown them what a better way of life can be like. Now it's
up to them. They can sink or swim. We need to just get all
our people out of there I say.

We won the wars, but lost the peace. Look at the post WWII and Korean occupations. We didn't allow the Germans or Japanese to govern themselves until we were absolutely sure that they would not turn on us. We had a number of advantages then, too:

Germany and Japan had been modern nations in economic turns that had been reduced to a bare subsistence level by the war, and depended on us to feed them while we rebuilt. This meant that the German and Japanese people understood, on a gut level, that they had been defeated and were now going to have to follow our guidance. The Germans were especially wracked by guilt when the sheer horror of the Holocaust came to light, but the Japanese had seen a massive failure of their warrior culture, and had to reevaluate their entire worldview.

OTOH, Afghanistan was a primitive pit that had driven out the Soviets, lived in utter squalor and chaos under the Taliban and then been defeated in one of the most bloodless, merciful campaigns that they had ever seen. Our subsequent occupation was so busy trying to avoid offending them that one had to wonder who the victor was. The upshot is that the Afghans didn't feel defeated. They thought that, like every other conqueror, we'd eventually be driven out by their superior warrior spirit, and thanks to Obama, they've been proven right.

Second, the leadership of Germany and Japan wanted to cooperate with the victors. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi inner circle had been killed or fled, and those who remained had been tried before the world as war criminals. The others, the ones who hadn't been convicted, wanted to avoid being hanged or jailed. This meant that there was very little in the way of resistance to the occupation. In Japan, the Emperor ordered his people to lay down their arms, surrender and follow the orders of the victors. Had he not done so, we'd have had an Iraqi/Afghan-style insurgency there.

Compare that to Iraq and Afghanistan, where the leadership went underground and continued to direct an insurgency. Had we kept the Iraqi Army intact and co-opted its leadership, we'd have avoided a great deal of pain there. In Afghanistan, where there was no real central government (the Taliban basically worked through the tribal structure), that would have been far more difficult.

Islam wasn't a factor. The German state religion was Nazism, which had been defeated. The Japanese had their religion kept intact, and the Emperor had ordered them to surrender, so that was not an issue, but Islam demands resistance to any other religion or form of government. Even if the tribal leaders and every other institution had fallen into line, there'd still have been a religious terror movement. If it hadn't been the Taliban, it would have been al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood, but no Islamic authority could ever countenance Kafirs ruling over Muslim lands. That's not to say that the jihadis couldn't be suppressed and defeated, but it would have been a permanent state of conflict and we'd have had to recognize that.

We'd have had to completely rewrite the culture of Afghanistan in order to build the kind of state that we want there, and while that's possible, it would have taken decades, and demanded a level of ruthless suppression of historical norms that our touchy-feely multiculturalists would not have been able to stomach.

Originally Posted by Kay

But my 1st preference would have been this:

I'm coming around to that myself, but unfortunately, our leadership and media don't have the understanding of our enemies that would lead them to be able to take that course of action.

Obama has bungled it. He has traded a position of American strength in hopes that his personal popularity will rebound, and lost twice: Once when Americans were killed and again when Karzai used Obama's weakness as a stepping stone toward Karzai's own popularity.

And I believe that Obama has bungled it so badly that we should now leave. Afghans who were thought to be our allies can no longer be trusted, and every westerner in Afghanistan is in more danger now than when Obama took the helm 3 years ago.

And that, Boys and Girls, is just sad.

It is indeed but was not only predictable, it was predicted. O Blah Blah doesn't possess the courage or the will to lead. He believes his typical BS and bullying that got him where he is will win the day. He is a typical panty waist liberal that has endangered our troops and has turned every hard fought gain into a wasted effort.

Conservatives knew over three years ago what this turd would lead us into. He has got to be defeated in November for the sake of any shred of dignity this country has remaining. We can then begin the hard work of apologizing to the world for our misguided and ignorant descent into a known failed philosophy of stealing from others to hand to useless government programs. We can apologize for turning our back on traditional friends and allies for a stupid, careless, and failed reach toward sworn enemies, believing that they will magically and overnight "love us" because of O Blah Blah the magnificent's intellect and charm.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand

It is indeed but was not only predictable, it was predicted. O Blah Blah doesn't possess the courage or the will to lead. He believes his typical BS and bullying that got him where he is will win the day. He is a typical panty waist liberal that has endangered our troops and has turned every hard fought gain into a wasted effort.

Conservatives knew over three years ago what this turd would lead us into. He has got to be defeated in November for the sake of any shred of dignity this country has remaining. We can then begin the hard work of apologizing to the world for our misguided and ignorant descent into a known failed philosophy of stealing from others to hand to useless government programs. We can apologize for turning our back on traditional friends and allies for a stupid, careless, and failed reach toward sworn enemies, believing that they will magically and overnight "love us" because of O Blah Blah the magnificent's intellect and charm.

Karzai continues to demonstrate that he is sharper than Obama.

Earlier on Sunday, in a televised address, President Hamid Karzai "condemned with the strongest words" the treatment of Islam's holy book and said the people who did it should be punished.

But he also called for an end to the violence saying: "Now that we have shown our feelings, it is time to be calm and peaceful."

Mr Karzai said he respected the feelings of Afghans incensed by the Koran burning, but called on them not to "let the enemies of Afghanistan misuse their feelings".

He continued: "The demonstrations unfortunately had casualties, some 29 persons were martyred and around 200 wounded.

"We have ordered the security forces to be careful and protect people's lives and property."

The burning of the Korans had sparked five days of violent protests.

The Afghan Taliban have called on Afghans to kill foreign troops in revenge for the Koran burning, and claimed to have been behind the shooting deaths of two US officers within the heavily-fortified interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday.

Karzai said exactly what his people wanted to hear, but also told them to calm down. Of course, the Taliban will whip this up for all that it's worth, but let's remember that the persons who desecrated the Qur'ans were the prisoners who wrote jihadi slogans all over them. Let's also remember that the various Islamic terror groups routinely target mosques for bombings, and that those mosques have Qur'ans in them. Blowing up a mosque full of Qur'ans has got to be worse than simply burning a couple that had been defaced, and one would think that blowing up a mosque full of people and Qur'ans would be worse than either, but there isn't a whole lot of that kind of thinking in the Muslim world.

Earlier on Sunday, in a televised address, President Hamid Karzai "condemned with the strongest words" the treatment of Islam's holy book and said the people who did it should be punished.

But he also called for an end to the violence saying: "Now that we have shown our feelings, it is time to be calm and peaceful."

Mr Karzai said he respected the feelings of Afghans incensed by the Koran burning, but called on them not to "let the enemies of Afghanistan misuse their feelings".

He continued: "The demonstrations unfortunately had casualties, some 29 persons were martyred and around 200 wounded.

"We have ordered the security forces to be careful and protect people's lives and property."

The burning of the Korans had sparked five days of violent protests.

The Afghan Taliban have called on Afghans to kill foreign troops in revenge for the Koran burning, and claimed to have been behind the shooting deaths of two US officers within the heavily-fortified interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday.

Karzai said exactly what his people wanted to hear, but also told them to calm down. Of course, the Taliban will whip this up for all that it's worth, but let's remember that the persons who desecrated the Qur'ans were the prisoners who wrote jihadi slogans all over them. Let's also remember that the various Islamic terror groups routinely target mosques for bombings, and that those mosques have Qur'ans in them. Blowing up a mosque full of Qur'ans has got to be worse than simply burning a couple that had been defaced, and one would think that blowing up a mosque full of people and Qur'ans would be worse than either, but there isn't a whole lot of that kind of thinking in the Muslim world.

The White House press secretary told members of the press pool aboard Air Force One today that President Obama’s “sincere” apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a Koran-burning incident “is not appropriate to show” to reporters.

Jay Carney spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes as the presidential entourage flew to Florida for a speech on energy at the University of Miami.
Obama’s letter to Karzai that included the apology was “a lengthy, three-page letter on a host of issues, several sentences of which relate to this matter,” according to the travel pool report.Keep reading…

The White House press secretary told members of the press pool aboard Air Force One today that President Obama’s “sincere” apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a Koran-burning incident “is not appropriate to show” to reporters.

Jay Carney spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes as the presidential entourage flew to Florida for a speech on energy at the University of Miami.
Obama’s letter to Karzai that included the apology was “a lengthy, three-page letter on a host of issues, several sentences of which relate to this matter,” according to the travel pool report.Keep reading…

This is just like O Blah Blah. He has a fear of showing anything about himself that indicates how monumentally stupid and naive he really is. He fears that his minions won't adore him enough if they only knew the real little man he truly is.

He is going to be the only president to have a library with no records or non-fiction sections.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand

It really is time to GTFO of that shithole, cut off all aid, and let the animals get back to butchering one another. If they cause us any further problems, just bomb them forward to the stone age. They aren't worth a single American boot on the ground.

Yep, I really find it hard to disagree.

Hmmm...how about we leave and pay them a million bucs for everyone of these they let us test.